Accelerating Change for Social Inclusion project. Call for Proven Innovations addressed to Youth Unemployed. Definition of the key elements of the social problem and the solutions.

1. Challenge Brief
Building better employment opportunities
and pathways for young people
October 2016
ATHENS
BARCELONA
LISBON
ROTTERDAM
STOCKHOLM
ACCELERATING
CHANGE
FOR SOCIAL
INCLUSION

2. ACCELERATING CHANGE FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION / ACSI
ATHENS / BARCELONA / LISBON / ROTTERDAM / STOCKHOLM
October 2016
Challenge Brief
Building better employment opportunities and pathways
for young people
1. Description
In the wake of the crisis, rising youth unemployment has reached critical levels that demand urgent
attention. A startling number of 16 to 24 year-olds are facing unemployment, part-time employment or
insecure, low-wage jobs, or just simply inactivity. This situation increases instability and cripples
economic growth as it limits young people’s capacity to contribute to the economy and society.
2. Key data and considerations about youth unemployment
§ More than 5 million young people aged 15-24 are unemployed in the EU today. This represents an
unemployment rate of 21 %. This means that more than one in five young Europeans on the labour
market cannot find a job. In Greece and Spain, it is even one in two.
§ Although it has decreased – from more than 23% in 2013 to less than 21% today – the youth
unemployment rate is still very high in the EU (with peaks of more than 40% in several countries).
Long-term youth unemployment is still at record highs.
§ 30.1 % of unemployed people under the age of 25 years in the Union have been unemployed for
more than 12 months.
§ 11% of those aged 18-24 are early school leavers.
§ 61% of employers are not confident they could find enough applicants with the right skills to meet
their business needs1
.
Spain 51.4%
Greece 50.6%
Portugal 34.5%
Sweden 22.5%
Netherlands 9.6%
2
Unemployed people aged 15-24 by Eurostat 2015
1
“Education to employment - Getting Europe's youth into work”, McKinsey Center for Government (2014)
2
YG Leaflet 01 2015 http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1036&langId=en

3. ACCELERATING CHANGE FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION / ACSI
ATHENS / BARCELONA / LISBON / ROTTERDAM / STOCKHOLM
Considerations
§ Understanding the different faces of unemployment. Youth unemployment has many different
faces. Some young people might be out of work and have little education or training, while others
may have graduated college or completed secondary education. Some youth are currently working
in the informal sector and need to transition into less vulnerable jobs. Many also come from
abroad, being migrants or refugees and find difficulties at empowering themselves and proactively
integrating into education and the labour market. How might we create different pathways to
employment that take into account these different needs?
§ Training and learning the right skills for success. Young people need skills and experience
relevant for 21st century jobs. Even those who have gone through traditional education may lack
skills relevant to employers such as critical problem solving. Those coming from abroad face
additional language and cultural barriers, as well as official qualifications that might not be
recognised. How might we engage schools, employers, NGOs and cities to train youth with the
right skills to meet job market demands, while continuing to encourage creativity and flexibility in
education systems?
§ Fostering young people's unique talents. From their innovative use of technology that creates
new products to their creative curiosity that welcomes new challenges, young people around the
world are rewriting the workforce and altering traditional pathways to employment. However, it
proves to be challenging for young people to acquire resources, such as loans and business
licenses, to launch their initiatives. How might we promote entrepreneurship and other alternative
employment pathways for young people?
§ Investing in and valuing young people’s potential. Employers report challenges with hiring
young people. But investments in training and skills development to support youth's long-term
success can prove to be profitable down the line. How might we connect employers, educators,
NGO’s and city officials to realize and cultivate the potential of young employees?
§ Bridging the information gap. Young people, especially those from low-income backgrounds,
lack networks and connections that are traditionally the major sources of access to job
opportunities. How might we improve recruitment efforts, networks, and pathways to connect youth
to the right employment opportunities?
§ Caught in a Catch-22 situation: Young people are often unable to get work without experience
and unable to get experience without work. There is also evidence showing that young people are
still most likely to be recruited into low skilled, low paid roles at the bottom of the labour market
where they are least likely to receive training and where the pathways to higher skilled, higher paid
jobs are not clear.
3. Target groups
Young people unemployed are an extremely diverse group of people that faces the same challenge from
different standpoints. Lack of opportunity is influenced by their place of birth, of residence, their family,
their social network, their education, the social or ethnic group, their health status… Overall, this project
will focus on young people from 16 to 24 in all their differences, whether they are refugees and migrants

4. ACCELERATING CHANGE FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION / ACSI
ATHENS / BARCELONA / LISBON / ROTTERDAM / STOCKHOLM
or local youngsters, whether they have completed obligatory education or not, whether they have already
entered the labour market without the skills to maintain their jobs and grow or not.
4. Levers of change
Leadership and engagement
Paternalistic approaches to youth unemployment are generating poor outcomes as they rarely capitalise
on the motivation and engagement of participants. However, these are critical success factors to prepare
people for the job market, or to retrain them if they need different skills. This project will search for
initiatives that promotes participation in and the creation of a more just and equitable society in which
youth are valued and have the opportunity to be productive and connected citizens who make
meaningful contributions.
Adequate support for entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is one of the key driving forces of the European economy. Small and medium-sized
provide with two of every three jobs in the private sector. The role of entrepreneurship in building
dynamic cities that encourage social change and economic opportunities is becoming increasingly
crucial as the economy becomes more uncertain and complex. The project will look into innovations that
are successfully promoting entrepreneurship and self-employment among young people, particularly
among the more vulnerable.
Develop skills for a rapidly changing labour market
Major shifts in employment patterns have made some jobs and skills obsolete and a growing demand
arising for new attitudes and career paths: creativity, flexibility, communication, problem-solving,
collaboration, entre- and intrapreneurship are becoming essential for people to access the labour
market.
Develop opportunities for early and meaningful professional experiences for disadvantaged
groups
The labour market still lacks the capacity, the flexibility and the openness to include and respond to the
specific needs and abilities of certain groups in society: young migrants and refugees can bring unique
value to many organisations. There is a need for proven innovations to demonstrate how to tap into
these skills and people at early stages.
Better match demand and offer
Despite the levels of unemployment, one out of four employers find difficulties in matching jobs with the
right skills. This mismatch of skills and a better facilitation of market dynamics require different solutions
than the usual ones.
Facilitating transitions from education/training to employment
The apprenticeships or dual learning system yields great value for employers and generates stability in
an increasingly flexible labour market, but has yet to resemble an attractive proposition (including status)
for youngsters and a strong value proposition for small and medium size companies.

5. ACCELERATING CHANGE FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION / ACSI
ATHENS / BARCELONA / LISBON / ROTTERDAM / STOCKHOLM
Developing STEM vocations
With the number of trained scientific and technological professionals available often insufficient to meet
today’s needs – with demand expected to continue rising in the coming years- promoting STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) vocations in our cities seems an essential pathway to
increase employability of young people.
Technology approach
The ICT opens up interesting possibilities in the provision of social services, the use of idle or latent
resources in the cities, and in the prevention and mitigation of impacts of unemployment. Also helps to
scale up initiatives that operate in a short range.
5. Research criteria of innovative solutions
§ Evidence of impact: Innovations that provide a model that positively affects the expected results,
which have generated sufficient evidence of results and are minimally evaluated.
§ Scale: Innovations that have been implemented in more than one location or are prepared for
replication in new contexts because they have a projection model or transfer to other agents.
§ Sustainability model: Innovations with diversified revenue model, optimization of resources or
use of community resources, so that they cannot depend on regular subsidies to sustain their
operations available.
§ Adaptability: Innovations that are not context-specific, but adaptable to different cultural, social
and economic backgrounds. Ideally, these innovations might have been packaged and
implemented outside its original location.
§ ROI: Innovations that generate social impact and a good return of the investment.
§ Worldwide research: Innovations from all over the world, since our proper context (Europe and
North America) until very different context (as Africa, Latin America or Asia).
ACCELERATING CHANGE FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION / ACSI
Catalysing the transfer of successful innovations among European cities.
Project implemented by UpSocial in collaboration with Partner Cities, and with the generous support of
the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and “la Caixa” Foundation.
PARTNER CITIES
Athens, Barcelona, Lisbon, Rotterdam, Stockholm.
More information: www.upsocial.org